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Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Cherry Hills: A Lost Neighborhood, Part ll

During the 1800s the Cherry
Hills neighborhood and its tenement houses along the East River were the worst
slum in New York City.

Crime and disease plagued
this area that had once been an elite neighborhood where George Washington and
John Hancock lived.

Within Cherry Hills sat a
3-room flat that many tried to live in but did not succeed. This flat in the
late 1800s and early 1900s quickly became legendary in Cherry Hills for an
entity that haunted it.

It was plagued by a violent
poltergeist for 19 years. Several New York newspapers at the time documented this activity.

Twenty years before this
haunting was first noticed a French woman lived in this flat with her husband.
When her husband died it is said she was left desolate--both emotionally and
financially.

In an act of desperation she
took a clothesline and hung herself in the flat. It was believed that she was
the entity that plagued a variety of families that moved in after her suicide.

This flat first became
notorious within Cherry Hills when a tough longshoreman, “Jackie” Haggarty
decided to test the rumors that something strange was happening.

The night he visited he heard
noises and left the flat. In the hallway something thumped his eye hard. Left
with a black eye it is said this incident shattered his tough reputation.

Tenement House

Housing was scarce in the
Fourth Ward and several families despite the flat’s reputation moved in. The
newspaper reports stated that most only stayed a few hours.

A couple by the name of Ryan
moved in with their three children. In bed the first night they heard a loud
racket. They all scrambled out of bed and watched as an unseen entity threw
their furniture across the room.

The husband was punched in
the face, his wife’s left eye was blackened and the children became ill. This
it was said all happened within 6 minutes.

It had taken the family six
hours to move in, it took them less than an hour to move their belongings out.

Other families found their
furniture piled high and pictures that they had hung turned around.

Yet another resident of the
flat, Mike Finnegan saw his heavy iron stove tip over. He

Cherry Hills Slum

moved out shortly
after observing this strange sight.

As to whether this activity
would have continued is not known for shortly after these incidents most of the
Cherry Hills neighborhood was torn down partly because of all the disease and
crime that plagued this block and partly because of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge construction.

Here is a link to a New York
Times account of this haunting in March of 1900.

This East River, NYC Cherry
Hills neighborhood should not be confused with the Albany, New York estate
called Cherry Hills that is also haunted.In Part l of Cherry Hills: A Lost Neighborhood, information about Cherry Hills' history is shared.